


A Portrait at Midnight

by in_a_pickle



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 1950s, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Banter, Churchyards, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Halloween, Humour, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, fedoras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27261661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_a_pickle/pseuds/in_a_pickle
Summary: “That’s what you think I do on Hallowe’en is it?” said Crowley flatly, “Strip naked and cavort around a big bonfire with Hastur and the guys, shrieking obscenities at each other and swigging blood out of a goat’s skull.”Aziraphale can only guess where Crowley sneaks off to every Hallowe'en.
Relationships: Crowley - Relationship, aziraphale - Relationship
Kudos: 8





	A Portrait at Midnight

“So . . . I’ll be off then,” Crowley emptied the last mouthful of wine in a huge gulp and tried to keep the trickle of guilt out of his voice, “It’s that time of year again.” He levered himself up off the tatty old sofa and saw Aziraphale hadn’t looked up. He knew the angel wasn’t pleased. He wasn’t pleased at all. “The only time of year when your dark and gloomy bookshop looks bloody festive.” His attempt at lightening the mood drizzled away.

“In such a hurry to leave?” Aziraphale pouted dourly, prodding at his selection of little white tiles, “I was just about to put down QUACKLE on a triple word score, that’s hardly sporting my dear.”

“Quackle? What’s in Satan’s name is a Qua . .” Crowley stopped himself asking the question, he should know by now this was one of Aziraphale’s time-perfected stalling techniques, fully crafted over the years to make Crowley late for the thing he did, without Aziraphale, on Hallowe'en. Quackle could wait. Midnight wouldn't. “Ha! Nice try," he smirked.

Aziraphale huffed back into his chair and scratched at a loose piece of varnish on the arm that had flaked off decades ago. “Where was it you said you were going again?” he asked with the calculated vagueness of a master at work.

“I didn’t,” Crowley checked his watch, it was twenty to midnight, “isn’t a demon allowed to have his little secrets now and then, particularly tonight of all nights.” Aziraphale looked up and narrowed his eyes, using his angelic senses to try and prod through the stubborn defences that guarded the labyrinth of Crowley’s thoughts, he gave up with an annoyed puff of air.

“I didn’t think you went in for all that hocus-pocus nonsense anyway, but every Hallowe'en off you go-a-lurking with all your ghoulish cronies, lying in wait for the nearest hapless virgin to swoon into your diabolical hands. It’s all rather gauche if you ask me.” He put QUACKLE down on the squared board anyway and made a show of pointedly licking the end of his pencil and adjusting his ridiculously high score, “and fifty extra points for using all my letters. I do rather like this new board game, don’t you?

“That’s what you think I do on Hallowe’en is it?” said Crowley flatly, “Strip naked and cavort around a big bonfire with Hastur and the guys, shrieking obscenities at each other and swigging blood out of a goat’s skull.” The unwelcome image of a bare-arsed Hastur dancing wildly on a moonlit hilltop suddenly popped into his head, he had to forcefully miracle it out, that was a spectacle no one deserved to see. Crowley reached up and took his jacket off the tall coat stand, and shrugged it over his shoulders, he unfolded his dark glasses from the top pocket. “And you say _Hell_ has no imagination.”

“Well as you’ve never, _ever_ divulged any information about what it is exactly you _do_ do, then you only have yourself to blame for my vulgar assumptions,” Aziraphale grumbled and picked out seven more letters, another Q and two Z’s did nothing to improve his sour disposition.

Crowley held his hands up in despair, he should find it all pretty insulting, seeing how long they had known each other, but maybe that look of sheer annoyance on Aziraphale’s face was worth it. It gave a demon the same sort of warm feeling as magicking up a family of maggots into a child’s toffee apple.

“Night then,” He picked up his black fedora and turned to leave, Aziraphale was studying the game board with far too much interest, he hadn’t finished with him yet, he knew this angel too well.

“I just thought,” Aziraphale said examining the lines of interlocking words, “I just thought . . . since our joint venture a few years ago, thwarting those unpleasant Nazis, that we were now . . . trusting each other a little more?” He looked at the demon, his expression open and hopeful, a tiny hint of sadness precisely marring his impossibly beautiful blue eyes.

It was one last-ditch attempt to crack his friend's resolve. The sly bastard.

“Joint venture!” Crowley snorted in retaliation, he wasn’t falling for that one, “That’s what you call _me_ getting _you_ out of trouble these days, is it?”

Aziraphale threw his pencil into the middle of the Scrabble board dislodging the word ‘FOILED’.

The demon slipped on his shades, “Have a happy Hallowe’en angel” he laughed as he tipped his hat in a polite farewell and crossed the old bookshop to disappear out into the moonlit night.

*****

  
Aziraphale respectfully waited for a few seconds before he leapt up and peered out of his grimy shop front window, watching as Crowley’s gangly limbs sauntered away, navigating a couple of drunken miscreants who were meandering their way home. As Crowley disappeared around the corner onto Frith Street Aziraphale quickly unhooked his dark cream trench-coat off the hat stand and used a small miracle to turn his beige fedora a few shades deeper, to cover up his bright white curls. He hesitated by the biscuit tin then popped a Tunnock’s Tea Cake in his pocket, just in case he got a bit peckish on the way.

Closing the front door of the shop softly behind him Aziraphale stepped out onto the cobbled street and staying close to the line of dingy shop fronts he sneaked along the pavement. The yellow street-lamps glowed dimly through the haze of one of London’s lesser pea-soupers, lighting up the thick pockets of smog hanging sullenly in the gloom. In the darkness, the fine smokey blanket of soot turned Soho’s higgledy-piggledy buildings into formidable grey shadows and floated hushed voices, without bodies, out from the depths of dark alleys. It was a kind of night where you didn’t want to be seen alone. Aziraphale pulled the brim of his hat down, turned up his collar and hurried on to the end of the road.

There should be a small part of him that felt guilty at betraying Crowley’s trust on this matter, but that small part of him had been subjugated by a much larger part of him that had argued the toss and proposed that a little angelic intervention may actually be required tonight. Even a real thwarting might be called for, with Crowley’s permission of course. After all (he gladly reminded himself) defeating the wiles of the evil one took up most of his day as a Principality, and as Gabriel believed him, it must be true.

‘ _Isn’t a demon allowed to have his little secrets_ ’ Crowley’s words still lingered in the air, teasing him, “Little secrets,” tutted Aziraphale as he dug his hands deep into his pockets. He was sure that there were absolutely no little secrets that he kept from Crowley, at all.

Well, maybe there was that tin of his favourite biscuits (that Crowley was also rather partial to) hidden in a hollowed-out copy of the complete works of Shakespeare, but as they kept on being replenished it may have suggested that Crowley did know about them after all.

But apart from that . . . oh, and that rather lovely photo of them he kept under the coin tray in the till taken when Brighton Pier opened at the turn of the century. Hmmm, maybe he should also count that black wing feather that lived in the false drawer in his bureau and that red silk cravat in his cardigan pocket - but he was only keeping that safe until the demon remembered he'd lost it. No. Aziraphale was sure there was nothing significant that he deliberately withheld from the demon and in the spirit of their Arrangement, he felt that sneaking off year after year without an explanation just wasn’t cricket.

Tonight, he concluded, he was going to find out what Crowley did at midnight on Hallowe’en and he would never mention it again, unless he got drunk, which was a highly likely probability, but as they rarely remembered much about the night before anyway, it really didn’t matter.

*****

The dimly lit streets of Soho were quiet save for the odd passing motor car or idling engine of a London black cab. It was a still night and the ribbons of Crowley’s familiar aura were easy to follow as they hung blood-red, entwined with the fog, gently dissipating into the cold night air.

Aziraphale kept at a safe distance all the way down Old Compton Street, ducking in and out of dingy doorways, Crowley’s height and black Fedora easy to spot as he fluidly strolled down the road. He watched as the demon tipped his black hat to a group of shivering night workers who suddenly found their hands around a steaming hot cup of tea. A few strides later he reached down to scratch a manky stray cat between the ears before he crossed the road to drop a few coins into the pocket of a sleeping homeless veteran, slumped on a bench. If a couple of ‘one-way’ signs happened to turn and face the other way as Crowley passed by, it was only to appease the conscience of a guilty demon and the angel knew not to interfere.

Crowley turned left onto Wardour Street, Aziraphale quickened his step until he reached the corner and peered cautiously around it. The demon had stopped under a pale yellow street light, the burned-out ruins of St Anne’s Church stood jagged like a stripped carcass behind him, the blackened charred clock tower was the only suggestion that a church stood here before the bombs fell. There was a rattle of chains as Crowley shook the locked gates, twisted and deformed by the blasts, but a gap was opened, big enough for a very thin demon to squeeze through and he slid between them, melting away into the dark shadows.

“I knew you were up to no good!” Aziraphale whispered under his breath and carefully tiptoed the last few meters, his tapping steps covered by the passing rumble of the No.55 bus. He waited until the tendrils of Crowley’s red trail had softened a little before squeezing himself, more awkwardly and with the help of the tiniest miracle, through the chained gates in his friend’s wake.

As he slipped carefully into the undergrowth, he felt the ground beneath his feet tingle with the memory of holy consecration, but the blessings had long gone and the graveyard was now soulless, overgrown and empty. In the sooty grey moonlight shattered names stood out here and there on cracked and tottering headstones, sinking into the ground as if they were being slowly reclaimed by their owners.

Aziraphale cautiously made his way up the side of a small flight of stone steps, hugging the darkness, avoiding the cracks and strewn debris that lay under his feet. Crowley’s shape was clearer now in the darkness, his red outline glowing faintly underneath the derelict tower. The demon was moving again, climbing up over a crumpled wall to the east of the church, his shoes slipping slightly on the smooth stone. He wriggled down the other side and settled himself on a wide slab of masonry slumped across a couple of ornate chest tombs.

Aziraphale crept towards the ruins of the west wing and crouched down behind the splintered remains of an ancient yew tree, to watch, its bitter piney scent hanging in the chilly air.

*****

The familiar chimes from the parliament clock tower heralded the coming of the midnight hour and Crowley took a small white candle out of his pocket and placed it on the stone slab. Aziraphale held in a breath. Crowley lit the candle with a quick flick of his fingers, the new light source softly lighting up his face, the small flame mirrored in the two circles of dark glass that covered his unblinking eyes. The demon reached inside his jacket pocket, drew out a white scroll of paper and unfurled it on the stone, too far away for even the most curious angelic eyes to see.

The distant bass notes of Big Ben delivered its twelve sombre strokes and a shiver prickled up Aziraphale’s spine as the dawning of the witching hour came upon them. As the last toll faded away into the night, ancient words, softly chanted, filled the air, resonating beautifully in the demon’s deep melodic tones, the gentle incantation Crowley was reciting was soothing, like a hypnotic mantra.

Aziraphale shifted slightly, remembering to breathe again, absorbed in the scene, whenever he had heard Crowley sing he could never quite understand how such a sensuous timbre could come from one She had eternally damned. He let the demon’s smooth chants wash over him and from the few phrases he could pick out it seemed like Crowley was performing some sort of summoning ritual, his words reaching out like fingers to tease apart the fragile seam that had weakened between the spiritual and material worlds. 

Aziraphale could feel the air in the graveyard thinning, he could sense the fine brush of ghostly spirits pressing around him, nudging at the fissure the demon had created. “Who are you bringing back Crowley?” Aziraphale whispered to himself, “In the darkest hour of All Hallows’ Eve?”

The candle flickered and the still night became charged with the crackling of dark energy as Crowley’s chanting faded away into a solemn silence. He remained in a trance-like state on the fallen wall of the old church staring out into the undergrowth that bordered the walls of the graveyard.

Aziraphale caught a brief glimpse of a shadowy white figure as it drifted amongst the thick bushes, its image flickering in and out of focus as it adjusted to its temporary existence in this world. The angel craned his neck to see if he could make out who it was, to see which one of history’s notorious despots Crowley had raised from the dead to wreak havoc on the city before dawn, but the presence was too far away to recognise.

The demon slowly came out of his altered state and eased himself down off the wall with care lest the spell be broken and he raised a hand in a way of a greeting. As the apparition drew closer Aziraphale could just make out he was bearded and wore a soft beret like a cap over long white curls. His wafting robe covered a belted tunic and when it approached the demon and brushed ghostly kisses on both of Crowley’s cheeks, the penny dropped, Aziraphale hadn’t seen him in the flesh for over 400 years but the shimmering ghost of Leonardo Da Vinci was unmistakable.

Leonardo was just like Aziraphale remembered him, as if they were back in Florence only yesterday, composed, gentle and captivating. “Chin up a little more Senor Aziraphale,” he had said with a wave of his hand, “yes just like that. Bellissimo.” Leonardo had finished sketching their portraits one sunny morning before they had retired to Aziraphale’s favourite restaurant for a rather boisterous boozy lunch.

Crowley and Leonardo had hit it off immediately, they were both big thinkers and their thoughts and ideas got wilder and more far fetched with each new bottle of wine that was opened. The whole afternoon got rather silly rather quickly and the consumption of too much alcohol, plus a little demonic persuasiveness, ended up with Leonardo daubing ‘ _Michelangelo è uno stupido idiota’_ in red paint across the outside wall of the Palazzo Vecchio. Aziraphale had to depart rather quickly the next morning out of his back window when there was an official-sounding rap on his front door.

Crowley had stayed in Florence for a few years after he had left, but his hastily scribbled letters arrived more frequently than ever, full of the ideas and wondrous inventions this brilliant man had dreamed up. Crowley had felt the loss more than usual when he died. Aziraphale leaned as far forward as he dared to try to catch the odd word or two, most of it was in an old form of Italian which it seemed Crowley was still fluent in. They became embroiled in an intense discussion, whilst Aziraphale listened munching on his tea cake, questions being asked and answered, concepts explained, new theories revealed, progress made. He couldn’t help but smile when the artist silently clapped his hands in delight as Crowley suddenly became animated, gesturing something taking off, pointing in to the night sky, his long limbs flying out in all directions trying to explain how far mankind and the helicopter idea had come.

All too quickly a small tingle of static crackled through the angel's corporation, he could feel the tear between the two realms binding itself together again. The translucent body of Leonardo began to grow fainter in response, losing its stability, he was being called home. As the conversation slowed a quiet mention of Aziraphale’s name drifted over and caught the angel’s attention, he saw Crowley give a shrug and a shake of his head and Leonardo softly placed his ghostly white hands over the area where his heart would have been all those years ago.

Aziraphale didn’t need to be a great detective to understand what they were talking about.

The demon was saying his final farewells as the distant notes of the half-hour bell chimed from the tower in Parliament Square and he sat back onto the ruins as Leonardo’s form slowly began to dissipate until it faded altogether, the candle extinguished, there was a small ‘pop’ and he was gone.

Crowley tumbled backwards off the large block into the darkness below.  
  


*****

Aziraphale leapt up from his hiding place and stumbled over the debris strewn in his path, hauling himself up onto the cracked cover of the chest tomb scattering a nest of mice and a few surprised spiders.

“Let there be light!” Aziraphale whispered, pulling a miracle from the air and lighting up the area of Crowley’s last whereabouts. He spotted the soles of Crowley’s snake’s skin boots poking up in the air, the rest of the demon was stuck somewhere between the final resting place of William Cottingham and a large ornate section of the east wall.

“Crowley dear boy,” he called down into the cobwebs, “are you alright?”

A low groan echoed up from the tomb-like depths of the crevasse, “I think I hit my head.”

“Hang on a tick, I’ll reach down and see if I can pull you out,” Aziraphale reached his arm down and felt around for a bit before he came across a cold boney hand, he rather hoped that it was one belonging to the demon and not to somebody else. Using a touch of angelic strength he hauled Crowley up and out of the rubble and sat him up on the flat stone he had used earlier. The confused demon let him fuss around him for a moment brushing the dust and moss off his black jacket and trousers.

”Oh, by the way I followed you, in case you wondered why I was here.” The angel said flippantly as he flicked away a spider that was eyeing up a cosy top pocket.

“Of course I knew you were here,” The demon snapped, “you’re terrible at hiding, there’s only one angel I know who makes that much noise enjoying a tea cake.” He gingerly put his hand to the back of his head and winced at the large lump that was growing there. He attempted to snap it away, but the last of his powers had been used up closing the portal behind his ghostly visitor.

“Oh. Well I felt it was my duty as a Principality to find out what you were up to, and it was a good job I did,” Aziraphale scolded, “you could have been summoning up any old evil mastermind on to church property.” he miracled Crowley’s glasses from the darkness and placed them back gently on his nose.

“Come on be honest angel, you don’t care a fig about evil masterminds, you just couldn’t bear to be left out of something I was doing.” Aziraphale refused to believe there was even the smallest grain of truth in this statement, but since the demon had handed him his precious bag of books back in 1941 he’d been deceiving himself about quite a lot of things.

“But what were you doing Crowley, and how? As far as I remember Leonardo Da Vinci was safely tucked up away in Heaven commissioned with painting infinite portraits of the Archangel Gabriel.”

The demon sighed, “I swore I would never tell you and neither should I, spying on me like that,”

“Maybe this will help loosen your tongue?” said Aziraphale holding out a rather temptingly full hip flask, “as an apology, for spying,” he gave him a winning smile and Crowley gave in, when it came to Aziraphale, forgiveness came far too easily. He took several restorative swigs, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth.

“I met a Shaman in North America a few centuries ago and he showed me how to summon human spirits, it’s simple really, you just need something they have touched to connect with them and it's easiest on this night, at this time when the boundaries between the two realms are at their thinnest.”

The demon took another mouthful, relishing how the brandy’s heat spread through him, like a warm fire. “I began to think about how many ingenious humans I had met through the years and how they must be really pissed off now they’re dead. Imagine you’ve been working towards something your whole life, you’re just days away from a massive breakthrough or finishing an incredible masterpiece and ‘BAM’, suddenly the Black Death, or syphilis or even a runaway horse takes you away. Being dead can really limit your creativity.

So I thought if I could get them back, if only for a moment, and show them how they had influenced the world today, it might make the prospect of eternal death a little more bearable.”

He frowned rubbing his temples, “though I think I overdid it this time, I’ve never managed to hold it together for that long before”

“It doesn’t sound very demonic,” the angel said a little warily, “it’s almost a ‘good’ thing to do.”

The demon growled, a low sound in his throat, “Well, I like to think of Hallowe’en as a bit of a day off, seeing everyone is out and about doing Hell’s work for me.”

“What did you use to summon him?” Aziraphale asked, lifting Crowley’s fedora from the statuette’s chipped hand and holding it out.

Crowley sucked the brandy vapours in through his teeth, “What?”

“You said you needed something Leonardo had touched to make the spell work, I saw you with a scroll of paper, do you still have a piece of his work?” He checked around his feet in the overgrown grass, to see if it had fallen there.

“Yeah, just an old sketch, nothin’ important,” mumbled the demon, looking around for it, the damn thing must have rolled off somewhere.

“Oh there it is,” said the Angel keenly, plucking it out from a tangle of ivy, “may I look?”

“No,” said the demon and never had a word been so uselessly uttered in his very long life. He groaned and tipped up the hip flask taking a long gulp, steeling himself for what was to come.

Aziraphale unfurled the scroll, the soft tingle of a demonic preserving spell prickling his fingers. The picture he unravelled was the portrait Leonardo had sketched of him, captured in shades of deep ochre, all those years ago,

“Oh, you kept it,” the angel's voice had a slight waver, “I left it behind on the table in my room, I had to leave Florence rather quickly the next morning I recall.” His blue eyes were filled with more than a hint of affection.

“Yes I kept it,” Crowley squirmed awkwardly under the angel’s beatific gaze, the idea of being six foot under right now was quite an attractive proposition, “I’ve still got mine somewhere, did you know they’re two halves of a complete picture, they’re supposed to go together.” He looked way, trying to sound casual about the whole idea, “Leo said he drew them that way.”

Aziraphale’s bubble of light glowed a little more around them. “They’re supposed to be together?” he said trying to quell the emotion in his voice, he looked down at his likeness and imagined Crowley’s next to it, “I’d like to see that one day.” Crowley kept his gaze firmly in the distance, meeting Aziraphale’s eyes right now would be a complete disaster for them both. “Thank you for keeping it,” the angel said softly, Crowley made a disparaging sound, “No please Crowley,” he insisted, “just accept it for once. I mean it.”

The demon slid down off the rubble with a scoff and held out a hand to Aziraphale to steady himself as he followed him down off the crumbling ruins. “C’mon Angel, let’s get a nightcap at the bookshop, maybe you can check to see if my skull is still in one piece.”

They began to pick their way back through the churchyard in the hazy moonlight, Aziraphale held on to the demon’s hand for as long as he dared, hoping he wouldn’t notice, if he had he didn’t say.

“So who was the strangest person you've summoned?” Aziraphale asked as they squeezed back through the gates onto the pavement.

“Definitely Van Gogh, he was livid, I should never have told him how much his sunflowers are worth today.” They strolled across the road, the dark streets a little less ominous when your best friend was walking by your side. “I almost had to wrestle him back through to the other side,” he grinned.

“Don’t tell me you have some Van Gogh sketches at home too!”

“Nah, I just do a bit of borrowing every year, very useful places museums.”

Aziraphale’s laughter died away into the night and as they walked on he started to make a few small humming noises that suggested he was considering something, “So, all you need is a summoning spell, a candle and something a has touched,” he said as they turned onto Old Compton Street, “and the purpose of the churchyard?”

“Just for the added atmosphere really, you know ‘spooky’, thought they’d appreciate it, a bit more ambience than a car park.”

The angel suddenly stopped and clapped his hands together in excitement, “Ooh, maybe I could join you next year, I’ve got a rather lovely signed copy of . . .”

“No. Absolutely not.” Crowley groaned. “This is exactly why I have kept this from you for so many years! I knew this would happen.” He strode off in exasperation and Aziraphale had to double his step to fall in line with him again.

“There’s no need to be like that, I was just showing an interest in your hobbies.”

“No you weren’t,” Crowley muttered, “you really weren’t.”

They rounded the corner on Frith Street that lead back to the bookshop and Aziraphale thought it was deserted enough to slip his hand through the demon’s arm for the final few steps home. He squeezed it fondly, “We could finish our Scrabble game when we get back, open another bottle of wine, read a few Grimm's fairytales if you like?”

“Sounds terrific,” said Crowley, and they sauntered home.


End file.
